Location: Jerkin Residence - Grand Hall
Time: Evening - The Duel's End
---
Corvin stared at Leo across the ruined hall, and for the first time since he'd arrived, something flickered in those hollow, sleepless eyes. Not hunger. Not malice. Something almost like life.
"I never thought," Corvin said, his voice rough from disuse, "that some nobody prospect would be the one giving me a hard time."
His mouth twitched—an awkward, unpracticed thing, as if the muscles had forgotten how to smile. His eyes, bloodshot and ringed with dark circles, seemed to focus for the first time in days.
Leo wiped blood from his lip and laughed—a short, breathless sound. "Hey. You're not bad yourself."
They both laughed. It was strange—two fighters, battered and bleeding, sharing a moment in the ruin of a celebration.
Corvin extended his hand.
Leo hesitated—then took it.
And then Corvin moved.
His grip locked around Leo's wrist. His free hand clamped down on Leo's shoulder. His hips turned, his weight shifted, and Leo was flying—flipped forward, crashing onto his back on the marble floor, the air driven out of his lungs.
The crowd gasped.
Leo's vision swam. He scrambled for footing, but Corvin was already above him—foot raised, ready to stomp down on his chest.
Leo rolled. The foot crashed into the floor where he'd been. He twisted, found his footing, and countered—a low sweep that caught Corvin's ankle, a rising elbow that caught his jaw, three rapid blows to his midsection that drove him back.
Corvin's aura flared—that double-woven pulse of hunger and spirit, reaching for Leo, trying to take.
And Leo felt it.
Not with his eyes. Not with his mind. With something deeper—something in his chest, in his core, in the space where his own weave was anchored. He could sense Corvin's reach—the way it probed at him, the way it sought to strain what was inside him. He didn't understand it. He didn't know what it was called. But his body understood. His body reacted.
Whatever that is—if I let it touch too much, it'll break something. I need to keep it moving. I need to keep him moving.
Leo attacked.
Corvin's fist came at his face. Leo ducked, drove a blow into Corvin's midsection, twisted his hips to avoid a knee, tripped Corvin's ankle, landed three more strikes. Corvin answered with a fist to Leo's face. Leo caught it on his forearm, drove an elbow into Corvin's chin, and then—with a final, brutal motion—flattened him against the floor.
Corvin's head cracked against the marble. Saliva and blood sprayed from his mouth. The crowd roared.
But Leo wasn't done.
He did it again. Another strike. Another slam. Another impact that drove Corvin deeper into the stone.
Corvin's aura recoiled—a sound like a wounded animal, high and keening. The rotating presence at his edges stuttered, flickered, and began to decline. Visually, the crimson and violet around him dimmed. Environmentally, the marble beneath him stopped draining—the pale, brittle color fading back toward normal.
Vaela screamed. She rushed to Corvin's side, pulling him against her chest, her eyes blazing at Leo with grief and fury.
Leo stepped back. His hands rose. His voice was quiet. "I'm done."
---
Something stirred.
Leo felt it before he saw it—a shifting in his own chest, in the space where his weave was anchored, in the silent architecture of whatever Elijah had put inside him. It was small. Quiet. Patient.
And then it moved.
It flowed out of him—not through his skin, not through his pores, but through something deeper, something that wasn't quite physical. It moved like smoke, like shadow, like something that had been sleeping and was now awake. It crossed the space between Leo and the Pyre cadets in a single, silent breath.
And it entered them.
Corvin first. Then Vaela. Then Rhen, Goran, Marek, Dross, Veyra, Talon—each of them, one by one, unaware.
Vaela started screaming.
Her body convulsed. Her hands clawed at her own chest, her own throat, as if trying to pull something out that had already made its way in. Her eyes went wide—not with fear, not with pain, but with something else. Something that looked like knowing. Like she could see what was happening inside her and couldn't stop it.
Rhen collapsed. His limbs jerked. His mouth opened, but no sound came out—just a thin, keening whine.
Goran dropped to his knees. His massive frame trembled. His eyes rolled back.
Marek and Dross and Veyra and Talon fell one by one, their bodies convulsing, their voices rising in a chorus of broken sounds.
And then—the drying.
It started with their hands. The skin tightened, paled, pulled close to the bone. Then their arms. Then their faces. It wasn't decay. It wasn't burning. It was emptying. As if something was drinking them from the inside out, leaving behind only the shell.
W4 and W7—Rhen and Goran—dried fastest. Their bodies shrank inward, their faces hollowing, their limbs curling. In moments, they looked less like men and more like something that had been forgotten in a desert for years.
Corvin lay on the floor, Vaela still clutching him, her screams rising into something that wasn't quite human. Her body wasn't drying like the others. But her eyes—her eyes were wrong. They were open. Aware. And something inside her was fighting.
Timo Moriah watched from the sidelines, his glasses glinting. His voice was a low, delighted whisper.
"Now this is great scope for headlines."
---
The Jerkin —servants, off-duty cadets, the ones who had gathered to watch—stood frozen.
Their voices came in fragments.
"What—what's happening to them?"
"They're—they're drying. Like—like something's drinking them."
"I can't watch. I can't—"
"Is this Leo's doing? Did he—"
"I don't know. I don't know anything anymore."
Someone's phone clattered to the floor. Another stopped recording. VidFlash had gone silent—the Gen-Z narrator speechless for the first time.
The hall was quiet except for Vaela's screaming.
---
Vaela's voice cracked—raw, torn, aware. She was still holding Corvin's drying body against her chest. Her eyes were wide open, and they were seeing—seeing something no one else could.
Her screams didn't stop.
Timo Moriah tilted his head, adjusting his glasses. "Marvelous."
The night outside was very, very quiet.
And somewhere deep in the Jerkin residence, in a room no one was watching, a fire crackled in a hearth and a shadow smiled.